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In this cast we describe Horstman’s Law of Project Management: Who Does What By When.

We’ve talked and joked about it many times, and this cast will put to rest the details of Horstman’s Law of Project Management (HLPM). Mark came up with it several years ago, to help a group of young managers get over their fear of working on fairly complex software development projects. It was actually born over a dinner at Mexican restaurant in Dallas!

The concept is simple: all projects are simply tasks, done by people, within certain time frames. Despite all protestations to the contrary, no matter how complex the project, they all boil down to who is responsible for doing something, what they’re responsible for, and when they have to have it done by. Complex tools can be helpful, but only on really large projects (and almost nobody looks at them anyway ;-) ).

This guidance describes how to manage work and decisions being done on a project.

Projects are generally governed by Horstman’s Law of Project Management: Who does What by When. Sometimes it’s a five year project, and sometimes it’s 3 weeks. But it boils down to a string of tasks and deadlines, done by humans. And often we humans end up straggling after ripe blackberries when we should be meeting deadlines.

One thing all of us Project Managers can do to keep things on track is to run our project meetings as a Drumbeat Meeting.

This guidance describes how to manage work and decisions being done on a project.

Projects are generally governed by Horstman’s Law of Project Management: Who does What by When. Sometimes it’s a five year project, and sometimes it’s 3 weeks. But it boils down to a string of tasks and deadlines, done by humans. And often we humans end up straggling after ripe blackberries when we should be meeting deadlines.

One thing all of us Project Managers can do to keep things on track is to run our project meetings as a Drumbeat Meeting.

Never ask how a project is going. You’ll get information that isn’t helpful…and it’s your fault. Ask for status, and define what status is.

The average reported status of all projects all the world over is always "fine". That’s not to say the projects are actually fine - they’re all mostly crap. But we managers have a bad habit of asking the wrong questions of project team members of directs. And directs are smart enough to obfuscate.

The common response to questions about status is, "Fine." This isn’t acceptable or effective.

As a manager, ‘how things are going’ is never far from your mind. In addition to project tracking reports, weekly meetings, intranet sites with Gantt charts and resource tabs, you want to be able to ask your directs how things are going. But when they say "fine," that’s not really an answer. Here’s how to change that.

Our guidance on being able to give a Status on Demand (SoD) and the content of an SoD briefing.

As a professional, you’re responsible for knowing the status of any your projects at any one time. Your manager can expect that she can ask about any of your projects, or tasks on your task list, and you’ll know what’s happening with it, and when it’s going to get done. In this guidance we’ll tell you how to give that briefing.